St Matthew's Church is a heritage-listed

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

in Stirling Square, , Western Australia. The church is part of the

Anglican Diocese of Perth The Anglican Diocese of Perth is one of the 23 dioceses of the Anglican Church of Australia. The constitution of the Diocese of Perth was passed and adopted in 1872 at the first synod held in Western Australia. In 1914 in Australia, 1914, the ...

. Saint Matthew's was the first church to be built in the Swan parish. It was a small octagonal mud-brick church, hastily built on land donated by Governor James Stirling on his Woodbridge estate, next to where

Guildford Grammar School Guildford Grammar School, informally known as Guildford Grammar, Guildford or GGS, is an independent Anglican coeducational primary and secondary day and boarding school, located in Guildford, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia. Initia ...

now stands.

First structure

Governor Stirling laid the foundation stone on 6 September 1836, and it was opened a few months later before it was finished. It was not completed until 1839 and was consecrated on 23 November 1848. It was later demolished but the graveyard still remains. St Matthew's became the separate parish of Guildford in 1854.

Second structure

The second St Matthew's was built on the present site in Stirling Square and was consecrated by Bishop Hale on 21 September 1860. That brick building with a roof of shingles was destroyed in a hurricane on 12 March 1872 during a baptism. No-one was hurt but only the

harmonium The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. T ...

and a few books could be saved. Parishioners immediately started a rebuilding programme and the present church of St Matthew was opened on 9 June 1873, and consecrated on 15 October 1873. A second-hand pipe organ was installed in 1875. This organ had been built for St. John's Church, Fremantle, but became redundant when they purchased a larger instrument. A much larger pipe organ was installed in the church in 1911, replacing the earlier organ by R C Clifton. This new organ was built by the Adelaide builder J. E. Dodd. The organ has encountered many re-buildings over the years, but has been kept in remarkable condition. In 2004 the organ was fully rebuilt and now features a state of the art transmission system.

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Matthew's Anglican Church, Guildford

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

State Register of Heritage Places in the City of Swan Stirling Square (Guildford) Victorian architecture in Western Australia Western Australian places listed on the defunct Register of the National Estate 19th-century Anglican church buildings in Australia 1836 establishments in Australia Churches completed in 1860 Churches completed in 1873 Victorian church buildings in Australia